15/09/2025
Well I've been back from visiting my homeland, family and friends for nearly 3 weeks now and in that time I've been fairly quiet on social media - on my business pages at least. For those of you who have followed my work for a while, you'll know I'm not the best at keeping up with my business social media - particularly when I'm really busy with work (funnily enough 😁) Well Write from Source has been keeping me busy and away from here but I thought I'd pop on here to say hello and share a little titbit about the writing journey.
Many people have a glorified view of what writing is ...sitting with coffee at a computer, perhaps gazing out every now and then over a beautiful view as you await the muse to appear. Well - yes - sometime writing is a bit like that - but that generally only happens on my days off. 😁 My work days are a little messier ...and that's what I wanted to share with you.
I am old school. I was taught the textual editing marks and symbols, and I learned how to mark-up editorial and work with flat plans back at college, long before my publishing days. Everything then was on paper. Drafts were sent to designers in brown envelopes, and content was signed off in the 'big book' at the front of the editorial desk. I am still a very 'visual' writer and editor. I am very tactile with the page - it's a tangible experience to write this way - I can't just sit endlessly typing keys on a keyboard. I am conscious about the environment and re-use any paper I print out - but sometimes yes - I need to print work out. Only by printing the pages, marking the pages, re-arranging the pages on the desk - can I truly see how the content should flow - as the reader would read it. I have my typed out pre-planned checklists, structure outlines/plot points, author notes all strewn out beside me and only then can I inhabit the pages. So much of my work ends up with coffee stains, notes to self and doodles that it can, by the end of a session, look like a wild animal has run amok across my pages ... but somehow I find the order and the flow, ready to be transferred back into the manuscript sitting waiting on the computer.
So if you'd love to write, but have some romantic notion of how that should look, let that go right now. We all have our different styles and different rituals in terms of how we approach the page, so enjoy finding yours ....
